A prismatic haired girl is the first off the bus. “Woohoo! Finally! Manhattan, meet Rainbow Dash!” she looks at the tall buildings around her before taking off. Only having a firm grip on her shoulders kept her from speeding away.
“Hold your horses, Rainbow!” a girl in a Stetson with a southern accent tells her. “We ain’t here to fool around.”
“She’s right,” a lavender girl with glasses walks up to them. “This is supposed to be an academic trip,” she searches through a notepad. “Today, we’ll spend most of it settling at our hotel after everyone is assigned their roommate. After that, there will be two hours of free time before we have to be back for dinner. Then, curfew’s at…” she his stopped by a pale hand softly being placed on her shoulder.
“Thank you, Twilight Sparkle,” the woman tells her. “But perhaps you should leave the school scheduling to the actual teachers,” she looks back at the bus where her sister Luna and the math teacher Cranky are helping students unload their luggage.
Twilight gets a slight blush. “Sorry, Principal Celestia.” The girl’s bag then struggles before a purple and green dog.
“Man, Twilight. It’s getting stuffy in here,” the dog speaks. The lavender girl’s blush deepens as she looks back at the Principal with a nervous smile.
The woman glares at her student. “You were supposed to leave Spike at home, Twilight,” she reaches over to pet the dog. “Luckily, I chose a hotel that allows pets. Though, that was mostly due to Fluttershy’s habits.” Celestia glances back over at the bus as Cranky was about hand over a decently sized bag to a buttercream skinned girl, only to have the zipper seemingly undo itself as a rabbit, a couple squirrels, and a few birds come out. The math teacher gives an accusatory glare at the timid girl smiles as she picks up the now mostly empty bag and backs away.
A dark blue skinned woman walks up to pale skinned teen with purple who is manicuring her nails.
“Rarity,” the woman calls out. “Where I am a supporter of being prepared for the unexpected. I do believe you have overpacked for a school sanctioned trip. We will only be here for three days.”
The pale girl is sitting on a stack of several suitcases. “Vice-Principal Luna. When you visit a city as grand as this, you must not only dress. You must be the envy of everyone in your presence.”
Luna blinks at the fashion girl, still not understanding what she means before walking off. She does have other students to attend to.
A fiery haired girl hefts one of the bags. “This one must be Applejack’s. It weighs a tone,” the back is then snatched from her arms.
A cotton candy haired girl is testing the weight of the bag. “It only feels like six poundcakes, Sunset,” she then opens the bag to see its contents. “It is six poundcakes!”
Sunset shakes her head in amusement. “It’s your bag, isn’t it, Pinkie Pie?”
“Of course, it is,” Pinkie has the largest grin while hugging the bag. “Never said it wasn’t,” then walks away.
.oOo.
A Couple Hours Later
The Rainbooms exit the hotel as they finally have free time.
Twilight takes out a notepad. “Now what should we do? Oh! There’s a museum nearby. We could—”
“Boring!” Rainbow interrupts her. “This is a vacation. Why would we want to spend it doing egghead stuff?”
“Uh, Rainbow,” Sunset walks up to their athletic friend. “This is not a vacation. It’s a school fieldtrip.”
“Tomato, Tomahto. Same difference.”
A puff of smoke appears between them, and a white-haired girl is suddenly standing there in cape and hat. “I Trixie suggest that we go to the park so that people can shine in the glory that is I, Trixie, the Great and Powerful!”
The girls cough as they shoe away the smoke. Sunset looks at her, “Why are you with us again?”
Rainbow leans close to the fiery haired girl. “She’s your roommate. She was there when we came to get you.”
The former unicorn slumps. “Oh, yeah.”
“You should be grateful to be sharing a room with Trrrixie,” the performer boasts. “Now, prepare to be astounded!” another puff of smoke appears, and Trixie vanishes.
“She’s gone!” Pinkie exclaims but her and everyone’s attention is brought to the sound of clattering metal. “Oh, there she is.”
The Great and Powerful Trixie had tripped over a nearby trashcan before getting back up and running off.
The group then continued walking down the street, discussing exactly what they should do when Fluttershy spoke up.
“Something’s wrong,” the timid girl looks around. “Where are all the animals?”
Sunset turns to her. “Well, this is a city. Not many animals live here.”
“That’s not true,” the tambourine player shakes her head. “Animals are everywhere. Even when you can’t see them. But here? There are no birds, no rats, not even a dog going for a walk. Nothing.”
The girls look around themselves and are suddenly unease at the revelation.
“What does this mean, exactly?” Rainbow turns to her childhood friend.
“Not sure but that’s not all. The animals I brought with me refused to leave the hotel room. Not even Angel? When I asked what was wrong none of them were sure. They just felt that something wasn’t right.”
Twilight thought for a moment. “When we first got here, Spike was excited to go visit a new park. He suddenly felt down,” she looks up at all her friends. “I thought he was just tired from the long ride. But now I wonder.”
Suddenly, military trucks pass them, one after the other.
Rainbow speaks up. “This is either really awesome, or really bad.”
Everyone turned to glare at their prim-haired friend as trucks continued to pass by.